


Light

by orphan_account



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: And I had it mostly written before the description of Ruin came out so shhhh, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I tried to make it something that might happen in canon, If you don't want it to be Lizzington it doesn't have to be Lizzington, Like I said it's like canon, So is it explicitly romantic, So just like okay let me have my moment here, They do love each other in some way, b u t, just like canon, no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 11:25:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13030035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Liz is awake. Plagued with nightmare, her doctors suggest a change of scenery.





	Light

**Author's Note:**

> this is a little one-shot. enjoy :-)

That night she had another nightmare.

It was no different than the last, the same blurred images, a never ending cycle of the little things she can’t bring herself to forget: the sensation of her new ring digging into Ian’s nose, the glint of a blood-ridden knife, blue eyes meeting hers in the back of a Volkswagen, too bright florescent lights, shaky handwriting in a quiet hospital room, that look in Reddington’s eyes, then...an end.

Her doctors said it was to be expected. She had spent literal  _ years  _ studying people like herself; her situation was almost textbook. Liz understood logistically that she had gone through a traumatic experience, and that her brain is trying to work though the unworkable because of it. They said that the night terrors would pass soon enough, though; She’d go back to sleeping full nights once the initial shock dies down. But then they waited and waited, until the darkness under her eyes resembled that of when they weren’t sure she’d ever  _ stop  _ sleeping. Soon enough never seemed to come.

“Maybe a change of scenery?” the doctor had suggested. “Somewhere where you can figure things out for yourself while you’re awake, rather than depending on your brain to do it while you’re unconscious.” Reddington, who seemed to dominate all visiting hours, stared aimlessly at the floor for a moment, deep in thought at all the possibilities Liz realized he now had the power to force her to do, then back up at the doctor with a glint of something she’d seen so often in his eye.

“...I actually have a cabin in Virginia. It has just an  _ incredible  _ view of Smith Mountain Lake.” Red began, his tone overly whimsical, animated: the one he saves largely for top tier humorless criminals and complete strangers. For a long time she thought it was a form of overcompensation, but now it wasn’t hard to tell this doctor’s visit was just boring him, and she was finding it hard to blame him. There was a reason she became a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. “The cabin itself is secluded, but there’s this quaint little town just a few miles down the road with this one Italian baker who I once climbed the-”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a lot of other patients to get to today.”

“Yes, of course.” Red replied, seemingly completely unfazed by someone interjecting, being that it definitely was not the first time someone had done so. 

“Her getting away for awhile, especially with a child to come back to, might not be the worst idea.” He explained to Reddington, as if Liz wasn’t sitting five feet away. “As long as she continues her exercises and forms some sort of daily routine to follow like we talked about yesterday, I can recommend it to my resident.”

She wanted to say something. She was an adult--an adult who could very well make decisions for herself. But ultimately, she decided against it. She decides against a lot of words these days. As many as she can manage.

“I have no way to enforce this, but I didn’t see any close living relatives on her chart.” Ouch. He paid no attention to the way her jaw immediately clenched, and continued on. “She was in a comatose state for  _ ten months _ . If something were to happen while she was alone out in the middle of the woods somewhere-”

“I’ll be happy to accompany her.” Red chimed in. Liz felt her grip on the hospital bed sheets tighten. When she could spare a thought to what it would be like to heal, to somehow get back to a place that somehow resembles “normal”,  Red had never played a large part in the scenario. Still, she couldn’t help but take some pleasure in the angry heat rushing to her cheeks. It was a small sign she was actually still alive. There weren’t always a lot of those.

“Red-” She barely managed his name before her next few months were decided for her.

“That’s it, then.” The doctor looked at the scribbled on sheet in his hand, and without looking up he read aloud “It says here Elizabeth Keen is set to be released on the 24th.” Then for the first time in that conversation, he turned to face Liz, who apparently isn’t a ghost, unlike the strong evidence to show they thought she was. “And I expect  _ you  _ to be in a cabin in the forest by the 25th.”

So there she was. In a cabin in the forest, just as the doctor recommended, with the only the thing louder than the crickets outside being the sounds of her nightmare fresh in her ears.

The clock on her phone reads 4:43. It’s the earliest time she’s woken up so far during her stay there, and like most of the time she’s been awake, she doesn’t know what to do with herself. But if she spends one more minute staring wordlessly up at the wooden ceiling, she’s sure she’ll go insane. So instead she makes the executive decision to get up. To do what, she doesn’t know, but there’s always the assumption that she’ll figure something out along the way.

In the wooden dresser next to her bed, there are neatly stacked clothes, all in her size, with some she already owned, and some that she’d never seen before. Even with seemingly an entire other world to focus on, she couldn’t help but spare a thought to someone, most likely being Dembe, going through her stuff and meticulously picking out which items to bring.

She tried not to think about the current state of her living room.

Being only in a tank top and some old plaid pajama bottoms, she scavenged around for a sweater she hoped had made the cut, looking for the distinct soft olive fabric. Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered something-–a conversation that seemed to take place a lifetime ago.  _ Agent Keen, I have a tip. You’re a winter, not an autumn. _

Realizing almost hilariously her green sweater never stood a chance, she reluctantly pushed the drawer closed. It was a small loss, if one could even call it that, but a loss all the same. And Elizabeth Keen did not need any more losses at the moment.

As quietly as she could, she opened her bedroom door and made her way to the kitchen, brushing her hands along the wall the whole way there, feeling chips of the old paint pull up at her fingertips. So used to the comfort of living in her mind, the new sensations were a welcome change, whether it be her bare feet on the icy floor or a too-hot shower scalding her skin. But there is such thing as too much, and the moment her toes touched the tile, her mind betrayed her. Just the thought of food made her sick. She grabbed the corners of the wooden table for support, vaguely recognizing the prick of a splinter digging into her pointer finger.

Once the world had calmed down, she found herself shakily wandering to the couch, silently grateful that Dembe had chosen his own bed that day.

She could take a shower, but that’s almost all she’s done since she got there. “I’m going to shower” has been the only way to fend away the apprehensive, hovering criminals around her. Sitting in the shower has been the one place she could really shut down. But her hair was still slightly damp from her most recent escape, and she thinks if she had the emotional capability of it at the moment, she would feel guilty about how high the water bill must be.

Fresh air. That was the first thing that came to her groggy mind. She needed something outside of the stale cabin air around her.

There was a small terrace leading out of the kitchen that overlooked the lake during the daytime, but during the dead of night, the only view was just complete darkness on all sides. Liz almost liked that view better. There was less to focus on. Easier to disappear into.

She tried her best to open both the glass and screen door in silence, but both doors were much heavier than she thought they’d be. She quietly cursed herself for the strength she’s lost, but then persisted on. There were a few creaks and groans here and there, but she was mostly successful. She didn’t think anything was loud enough to wake either of the two men sleeping in their rooms down the hallway. Now of all times would not have been good to have a drowsy criminal point a glock in her face, thinking she was someone breaking and entering.

It wasn’t until she closed the one screen door behind her that she realized just how cold it was. It was the bone-chilling kind of cold, where you can’t feel your toes and every breath outward was visible to the world around it. But still, she sat down on the padded love seat, bringing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her bare arms around her legs. Instead of shying away, she embraced the prickliness of the cold. She was honestly just grateful she could still feel anything at all.

“‘ _ You can’t study the darkness by flooding it with light. _ ’” Liz spun around to see Reddington standing behind the screen door still in his dress shirt and pants, looking out over the lake. “Edward Abbey said that, I believe.” Seeing it was only him, she immediately relaxed again, resting back into her position looking out into the abyss in front of her. She was not in the mood for this. “Strange guy, but he had his moments, I suppose.”

“Sorry.” Her voice was small, but she didn’t have to explain any more than that. He knew what she meant. He knows more about her than she cares to admit, actually.

“I’ve been awake for awhile.” He clarifies, and her guilt of accidentally waking him immediately subsides. He opens up the screen door and makes his way outside.

“Then why...?”

“Am I awake? For similar reasons to you, I’m assuming.”

He was right. Again. And at any other time in their entire relationship, that would’ve been frustrating. But for one of the first times ever, she was glad to not have to finish a sentence. Though rarely acknowledged, they both knew she wasn’t the only one plagued with nightmares in that forest.

“May I?”

She carefully made her way towards the opposite side of the seat, giving him the non-verbal okay to sit down beside her. For awhile they sat in a frozen silence. But between them, it wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable. It just…was.

She leaned her head back in her seat with her face towards the sky, and for the first time she noticed that where they were outside of the city, the stars shined brighter than Liz had seen since she was a little girl, sitting by a mediocre campfire with Sam. Even just thinking about those days made her heart ache for one more s’more. One more laugh with her dad. One more  _ butterball _ . She quickly found herself sitting back up, facing the lake yet again.

She was so sick of missing people.

“I don’t feel much like a light.” she let out with a sigh, simultaneously cutting the small lull between them and giving him one of the longest voluntary sentences she’s said since she’s been awake. There was a pause as she stared straightforward to the slow dark waves in front of her, and she could see him glance at her in her peripheral vision.

But the pause only lasted a moment. And at the dawn of the next one, he brought his arm up around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him. As much as she enjoyed the sharpness of the cold, his warmth was incredibly welcoming. Her head fell instinctively onto his shoulder as she leaned into him, and together they sat, staring into the black forest around them.

“I myself am not a Transcendentalist, but I once shared a room with an especially talkative man, even more so than myself, who had dedicated his  _ entire  _ adult life to understand the literature they had produced during the early to mid 1800s.” Liz, in her exhausted state, tried hard to follow along with yet another one of his stories, but she found she was getting distracted by his free hand moving about as he expressed his point. What that point was, however, she had no idea. “I had little to no grasp on the subject before my stay at the Apex Robbins Motel, but by the time I left, I was essentially a knowledgeable dilettante.”

“They do have some nice sentiments.” He continued, paying no attention to Liz’s sagging eyelids. “Transcendentalists, I mean--not the Apex Robbins Motel chain. As a whole, Transcendentalists believed that nature is the place where we not only can be ourselves, but we can  _ find _ ourselves. Now I can’t say I’m an avid believer in the philosophy, but I can understand the thought behind it. Nature can be incredibly enlightening to those who are willing to listen to it.” He took a second to look out across to the other cabins lining the lake, and for just a moment, Liz thought he was done.

‘ _ Wilderness is not a luxury, but a-’” _

_ “’-necessity of the human spirit. _ ’” she finished, her voice hoarse and lacking it’s usual flame, but still there. From where she was laying, Liz could feel Red’s chest shift as he chuckled at her knowledge of yet another Edward Abbey quote, but what she didn’t see was the grateful smile that accompanied it.

They sat in silence again for a moment, completely comfortable in each other’s company.

“That’s what I want for you, Lizzie.” She instantly perked up at what she thought was her obsolete nickname, She hadn’t even realized how much she missed it until it was hers again. “That’s what I want for you here–-why I brought you here in the first place. If Transcendentalists believe you can realize yourself in nature, I can only hope you're able to realize what  _ you _ are."

Red leaned back in the chair, tightening his arm around Liz’s side and pressing his lips to the crown of her head. She felt her eyes fall closed, and managed to catch the last thing Reddington had to say, a small whisper into the mess of her hair.

“A light.”

**Author's Note:**

> this was fun as hell to write, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!


End file.
